In this update:

·         OECD social statistics ·         consumers ·         disability service delivery ·         duty of care ·         early intervention ·         early education ·         preventable complications ·         health system simulation ·         variations in healthcare ·         geography & health care

·         cancer treatment times ·         quality indicators ·         low clinical value treatments ·         nursing & midwifery ·         planning for disability ·         dementia end of life ·         infant mental health ·         alcohol ·         cannabis ·         childhood obesity

·         abuse & neglect costs ·         ATSI child protection ·         serious case reviews ·         early intervention ·         juvenile justice ·         indigenous juvenile offending ·         social housing stigma ·         home modification ·         housing pact ·         mixed tenure

	Society at a Glance 2011 - OECD Social Indicators After Japan and Switzerland, Australian life expectancy of 81.5 years is the highest in the OECD, more than two years above the OECD average of 79.3 OECD (Apr 2011) Empowering consumers of public services through choice tools the complexity of choosing between public service providers, such as choices about health care or education, can be particularly difficult...providers of choice-tools for public services could learn from private sector choice-tools that adopt a range of strategies to ensure consumer feedback is trusted and adds value, many of which appear highly successful also Better Choices: Better Deals UK Office of Fair Trading (Apr 2011) Service Delivery in CRS Australia assess the effectiveness of CRS Australia’s delivery of Disability Management Services...As disability services providers are required to have an internal feedback system, including for complaints, CRS Australia has processes in place to obtain client feedback and to address client complaints. These include providing information to clients on internal and external complaint mechanisms, having available a range of methods to obtain feedback and adopting a tiered system for recording and responding to complaints. Aus Audit (Apr 2011) UNISON duty of care handbook UNISON is Britain and Europe's biggest public sector union ...At a time of change, patients and service users depend more than ever on the integrity of care professionals. Also Private social work practices Splitting social work off into small companies will fragment services, when they really need to be more joined up. UK UNISON (April 2011) Evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence: What does it all mean? This policy brief outlines the complexities involved in selecting interventions for early childhood services. It advocates for a broader method of assessing outcomes of interventions through incorporating practicebased evidence into our understanding of evidence-based practice. Vic RCH (Apr 2011) Our future on the line Keeping the early childhood education and care reforms on track A State of the Sector report...looking at the progress each state and territory is making towards the national reforms of the early childhood education and care sector. Early Childhood Australia (Apr 2011) Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs brings together leaders of major hospitals, employers, health plans, physicians, nurses, and patient advocates along with State and Federal governments in a shared effort to make hospital care safer, more reliable, and less costly...Help patients heal without complication. By the end of 2013, preventable complications during a transition from one care setting to another would be decreased so that all hospital readmissions would be reduced by 20% compared to 2010. US DHHS (Apr 2011) Commissioning for the future Learning from a simulation of the health system in 2013/14 The simulation aimed to model the reformed National Health Service (NHS) as it would look in 2013. Its purpose was to observe the behaviours and dynamics that could potentially arise in the new system and provide a learning and development opportunity for local general practitioner (GP) consortia. UK Kings Fund (Apr 2011) Variations in health care The good, the bad and the inexplicable The causes of variation are complex and inter-related – they may be affected by, for example, differences in geographical patterns of illness, differences in clinicians’ behaviour, the effects of incentives in the financing of health care. UK King's Fund (Apr 2011) Geographic Variation in Health Care: Changing Policy Directions While research on geographic variation in health care use and spending has pushed the twin issues of uneven care and costs to the fore, it’s ultimately the broader health care system—not geography—that matters most in improving efficiency and quality US HSchange (Apr 2011)
	Targeting Shorter Waits For Cancer Treatment Everyone needing radiation treatment will have this within four weeks of the first specialist radiation oncology assessment. NZ Health (Apr 2011) Transforming Community Services: Demonstrating and Measuring Achievement: Community Indicators for Quality Improvement introduces 43 indicators for quality improvement for voluntary, local use in a community setting. ...Health and Wellbeing; Children and Families; Acute Care; Rehabilitation; Long Term Conditions; End of Life UK Health (Apr 2011) Reducing expenditure on low clinical value treatments  suggests that the NHS could save up to £500 million a year by carrying out fewer ineffective or inefficient treatments... the types of low value treatments identified included: Those considered to be relatively ineffective, eg a tonsillectomy. Those where more cost-effective alternatives are available, eg not performing a hysterectomy in cases of heavy menstrual bleeding. ...Decommissioning treatments can free up money that could be better spent on other treatments, but decisions can be controversial. UK Audit (Apr 2011) Report of the Prime Minister's Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England The Government's response to the recommendations in front line care...Flexible roles and career structures already exist, but these should be developed further so that nurses and midwives understand the wide ranging directions their roles and careers can take. UK Health (Apr 2011) Inquiry into Planning Options and Services for People Ageing with a Disability interim report: Access to options for and services to assist people with a disability and their carers to plan for the future Aus Senate (Apr 2011) Planning for End of Life for People with Dementia discusses issues including palliative care, refusal of treatment, pain control, resuscitation, residential care, advance financial planning and enduring power of attorney Alzheimer's Australia (Apr 2011) Improving outcomes, ensuring quality: a guide for commissioners and providers of perinatal and infant mental health services Perinatal and infant mental health-care spans many areas of care in health and social care: primary and secondary family health-care, all services for children aged 0-5, maternity services, mental health services (both adult and child and adolescent), children’s centres, safeguarding teams, public health and early years education and care, family support and parenting services.more UK NHS (Apr 2011) Annual Alcohol Poll: Community Attitudes and Behaviours An increasing number of people think that Australians have a problem with excess drinking or alcohol abuse (80%), up from 73% in 2010. also: Attitudes to energy drinks AER (Apr 2011) The Effectiveness of Cautioning for Minor Cannabis Offences “Less than one per cent of the adults cautioned for the first time, voluntarily call the drug helpline as a result of their caution. NSW Audit (Apr 2011) Strategic high impact changes: childhood obesity a summary of local views on good practice UK Health (Apr 2011)
	The economic costs of child abuse and neglect For every child aged 0-17 years in the Australian population, real recurrent expenditure (expenditure that does not result in fixed assets) on child protection and out of home care services was approximately $498 per child in 2009-10. This varied across jurisdictions, from $362 in Victoria to over $938 in the Northern Territory. AIFS (Apr 2011) Child protection and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were 7.7 times more likely than other children to be the subject of a confirmed report of abuse or neglect than non-Indigenous children AIFS (Apr 2011) The voice of the child: learning lessons from serious case reviews provides an analysis of 67 serious case reviews that Ofsted evaluated between 1 April and 30 September 2010. The main focus of the report is on the importance of listening to the voice of the child. UK OFSTED (Apr 2011) Early intervention, using the CAF process, and its cost effectiveness during 2010, 21 councils involved in a study of early intervention tools had saved up to £5,000 as a result of using the common assessment framework (CAF). UK NFER (Apr 2011) Juvenile justice in Australia 2008-09 Each year, less than 5% of young people are proceeded against by police, only around 2% have a case finalised in a children’s court, 0.5% are supervised by a juvenile justice agency and 0.2% are detained. In 2008–09, there were around 7,200 young people under juvenile justice supervision on an average day AIHW (Apr 2011) Promising interventions for reducing Indigenous juvenile offending A range of measures (including diversion and juvenile conferencing programs) has recently been implemented to reduce the over-representation of Indigenous juveniles in detention, and minimise the contact of juveniles with the formal criminal justice system. Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse (Apr 2011) The stigmatisation of social housing: findings from a panel investigation considers the impact of stigma for social housing residents and the policies that can be deployed to mitigate its effects AHURI (Apr 2011) NSW Review of HACC Funded Home Modification Services: Feedback Paper and Client Survey - for consultation NSW ADHC (Apr 2011) Making the Case for Housing: A Housing Pact from Northern Ireland’s Housing Professionals the views of a wide cross-section of the housing sector –  encompasses housing associations, private developers, landlords in the private rented sector, the Housing Executive, academics, the community and voluntary sectors and tenants. UK CIH (Apr 2011) Everyone Needs a Home - Report of the Working Groups 2011 There will be more mixed tenure in the future and schemes will be development driven. In order to work at a commercial level, this will often mean offering units for sale ahead of the social rented sector. UK Housing Forum (Apr 2011)